"No chance of him bein' not guilty to begin with, eh?" I suggests.
J. Bayard smiles cynical. "So far as I am able to learn," says he, "there is just one person, aside from Mrs. Pedders and her daughter, who believes him innocent. Strangely enough too, that's Norris, who was teller at the time. He's president of the bank now. I had a talk with him this morning. He insists that Pedders was too honest to touch a dollar; says he knew him too well. But he offers no explanation as to where the securities went. So there you are! Everyone else regards him as a convicted thief, who scarcely got his just deserts. He's a social outcast, and a broken, spiritless wretch besides. How can I do anything kind and generous for such a man?"
Well, I didn't know any more'n he did. "What gets me," I goes on, "is how he ever come to be mixed up with Pyramid Gordon. Got that traced out?"
"I sounded Norris on that point," says Steele; "but he'd never heard of Gordon's having been in Tullington, and was sure Pedders didn't know him."
"Then you ain't had a talk with Pedders himself?" says I.
"Why, no," says J. Bayard, shruggin' his shoulders scornful. "The poor devil! I didn't see what good it would do—an ex-convict, and——"
"You can't always be dealin' with Twombley-Cranes," I breaks in. "And it's Pedders you're after this trip. Come on. Let's go tackle him."
"What! Now?" says Steele, liftin' his eyebrows.
"Ah, you ain't plannin' to spend the summer here, are you?" says I. "Besides, it'll do you good to learn not to shy at a man just because he's done time. Show us the house."
I could have put it even stronger to him, if I'd wanted to rub it in. Had about as much sympathy for a down-and-out, Steele did, as you'd find milk in a turnip. You should see the finicky airs he puts on as he follows me into the Pedders cottage, and sniffs at the worn, old-fashioned furniture in the sittin' room.